Manager

Andrew Leicester

He has more than sixteen years’ experience in the analysis of government policy. His particular expertise is using microeconomic data to model the response to policy reforms, and applying good economic principles to help design, appraise and evaluate effective policy interventions. He joined Frontier in 2013.

Andrew works widely on projects related to productivity, innovation and industrial strategy. For BEIS, he led a major study of the impact of government grants for R&D on business performance using econometric analysis of large-scale administrative data. He also led previous work for the same Department on the economic and social return to investment in science and innovation. For Innovate UK, Frontier are currently conducting economic evaluations of four ‘Catapult Centres’, centres of excellence in innovative sectors of the future, and Andrew is leading and co-ordinating Frontier’s evaluations.

He also leads Frontier’s work relating to direct and indirect tax policy. For HMRC, he led the team which derived new estimates of price elasticities of demand in the UK gambling market, including the first estimates of elasticities for online gambling. This helped HMRC understand the revenue implications of reforms to gambling excise duties. He led a significant modelling exercise for the States of Guernsey to understand the impact of reforms to their personal tax and benefits system. He has also led a number of projects around indirect tax reform for clients in the private sector.

Prior to joining Frontier, Andrew was a Senior Research Economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. His work there focused on policies designed to influence the demand for alcohol, tobacco and transport, the application of behavioural economics to tax policy and microeconomic analysis of environmental policy. He led a number of projects for government departments, charitable bodies and third sector organisations, publishing a large number of peer-reviewed journal articles and policy briefings.